I’ve seen all the videos Jessica has taken of Namine at physical therapy, of course. But I’ve only rarely attended Namine’s therapy sessions, because they are during the week when I’m at work. I took the day off today, though, to help Jessica and Namine through a day of appointments, so I had the opportunity to watch Namine walk on the treadmill. Not only did she impress me, but she did the best she’s ever done – and Jessica can attest that I am not exaggerating.

Last week Namine had a blood draw in order to check for things. Things that would explain her recent lethargy and lack of appetite. Friday evening we got a call from the pediatrician, who said that there is nothing to indicate sickness. The next step? Contact cardiology at Children’s Hospital.

You know fall has arrived when everybody gets sick. Well, it’s here for the Eiche household. Yesterday morning, Namine woke up from a nightmare at about 6 in the morning. As if that were not bad enough, she also woke up with the croup. You know, it’s kind of funny. We’d gone to church the night before in anticipation of being able to sleep in. Just goes to show you, you can make all the plans in the world, but you can never predict anything. Of course, we know that better than most.

When Namine drops her sats, our immediate thought is that she’s getting sick. Well, she’s already sick, so it would be no surprise that her sats are down a little. But Namine was down to 81 this morning, and that’s frightening. To make matters worse, Namine woke up with the croup again.

On Friday Namine had her echocardiogram. Once again, like with Monday’s ultrasound, Namine was afraid of the tech and having the echo done. But when she realized that this was painless, she was fine. She lay perfectly still for the entire thing, much to the tech’s surprise.

Today started, well, not like any other day, maybe, but more or less how we expected. Namine had another visit from someone from the school – this time, a psychologist – and from there she had a couple therapy sessions to attend. We also had a scare today, but everything is okay now.

Yesterday afternoon, Jessica and I took Namine in to see the pediatrician. The particular doctor we saw had never met Namine before, but she seemed well enough acquainted with her file. (It’s about a foot thick. No surprise there, with everything she’s been through.) She listened to Namine’s heart and lungs, hooked her up to a pulseox (heart rate: 130-140, O2: 90-91), checked her ear tubes, and looked in her nose and mouth. Namine was, as always, well behaved and cooperative for the doctor.